University of Virginia Library

English Department
Gets Rid Of Comps

By Dave Schubel
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Last Friday afternoon the faculty
of the English Department voted
unanimously to make this year's
comprehensive examinations optional
for fourth-year majors and to abolish
the examinations next year.

Coupled with that action the
department moved to have, next year,
a required course distribution which
will necessitate a major's taking at
least one course in four of the six
periods offered in the department.
This course distribution requirement is
designed to promote breadth of
knowledge.

A student will still be required to
take a total of twenty-four hours
within the department for completion
of his major. However, next year, he
will need an over-all average of C for
the eight courses submitted to meet
the hour requirement in the major.

The faculty also unanimously approved
a motion which stated that unsatisfactory
work should not be given a C, but
rather a D or an F. Professor Eric Hirsch,
Chairman of the Department, said that the
action was not aimed at punishing those
who do not do well. Rather, it was intended
to reward those who do satisfactory work,
but who are often treated unjustly in
relation to others receiving a C minus for
unsatisfactory work. In essence, the department
is inaugurating a "Gentleman's D."

Friday's action was a surprise to English
majors who had expected to take comprehensives
in the Spring. Earlier in the year,
the Undergraduate English Committee had
voted to recommend to the faculty of the
English Department that the comprehensive
examinations be retained. In the period
following the committee's action, however,
discussion between students and faculty,
and among faculty members themselves,
revealed a strong and consistent student bias
against comprehensive examinations.

Mr. Hirsch stated that the department's
action on Friday had nothing to do with the
Inherent merits of the comprehensive
examination. Rather, it reflected a recognition
that comprehensives were no longer
educationally viable. There is, Mr. Hirsch
stated, a genuine mutuality in the learning
process.

If students are resistant to an element of
that process, the theoretical usefulness of it
is destroyed in practice. If the student
is against comprehensives, the student is not
learning from them. Other equally effective
and beneficial devices can be used to achieve
the aims of comprehensives.

Michael J. Hoover, fourth-year representative
on the Undergraduate English
Committee, concurred with Mr. Hirsch, Mr.
Hoover stated that the Department "recognized
that the original aims of comps could
no longer be accomplished with the
student's ideological bias against them.

"I do not believe that the student blues
implies laziness," he said. "Rather, those
against comps viewed them as literally
fear-producing, tension filled formalities
which accomplished no meaningful end."

The underlying theory of comprehensives
was that the preparation for them
would encourage students to do independent,
outside reading as well as promote
thought about inter-relationships of large
bodies of material. In essence, comprehensives
were intended to engage students
in independent study and thought that was
not course bound.

Mr. Hirsch stated that the department
was initiating new means to accomplish
these aims. Courses are now offered which
are specifically designed to encourage
independent work, such as the directed
reading program and the thesis course. Next
year there will be several more course to
encourage the students to think broadly,
focusing on themes or problems reoccurring
throughout literature.

The "minority report" contending for
the abolishment of comprehensives which
provided much of the basis for discussion
at Friday's meeting was prepared by Mr.
Hoover along with fourth-yearman James
Burkhardt and John Pinder, third-year
representative

Messrs. Hoover and Pinder were present
at the faculty meeting on Friday as full
participants. Mr. Hirsch noted that their
presence was a first and the beginning of a
good precedent.

The "minority report" was based on the
results of a questionnaire which indicated
great discontentment with comprehensives
among English majors. All the results from
the questionnaire will be incorporated into a
soon to be released report suggesting new
courses and other changes within the
department.